


The Sanctity Of Ritual

by two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29972661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat/pseuds/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat
Summary: Diane remembers being a god. Remembers painting the night sky with stars and watching as the humans gave her abstract work concrete meaning, drawing lines between bits of light, trying constantly to assign everything meaning. She still is a god, in theory, even with her powers stripped from her, even with skin that breaks at the slightest wear, with blood red instead of silver. Hes asks her about it, the night she comes back to camp later in the summer, after she and Apollo had that stupid fight about inheritance and dad and shit. Diane can't blame her - anyone would be curious."What's it like?" Hes asks. "Being a god?"
Relationships: Diane (Lumberjanes) & Hes (Lumberjanes)
Kudos: 7





	The Sanctity Of Ritual

This human body is odd and binding, so weak and fragile and useless in so many ways. Diane's arms are strong, yes, but only enough to pull a bow-string and watch it snap back. This isn't the strength she's used to, the endless power, the might of gods. These aren't the same hands that sculpted stars into being. These aren't the arms that lifted the Earth when Atlas asked for a moment's break. She is made of blood and bone, now, hair no longer auroras, eyes no longer constellations. When she runs she feels the push-and-pull of joints, tissue. She spends every moment breathing. She's never _breathed_ before. 

Diane remembers when the Earth was made - or rather, she remembers when her parents laid claim to it. The humans have their own mythologies, assume that Diane was born later, after her father won the sky in a game of dice and assumed the throne of the universe. But of course, humans have always had their own ways of looking at things. So obsessed with their stories. Diane's family prefers to focus on truth. The fact is, the Earth had already existed by the time they found it. The dice bit is also a lie - Zeus won the throne in a game of poker. Diane remembers when the Earth came to be. She's glad her parents decided on it; the other planets were so bland in comparison. Earth was exciting - blue and green and full of _life,_ and she didn't understand it yet, not really, but it was there. It was _beautiful._ It was new. 

She remembers being a god. Remembers hunting alongside now long-dead friends, defending the innocent, executing Orion. Remembers painting the night sky with stars and watching as the humans gave her abstract work concrete meaning, drawing lines between bits of light, trying constantly to assign everything meaning. She still _is_ a god, in theory, even with her powers stripped from her, even with skin that breaks at the slightest wear, with blood red instead of silver. Hes asks her about it, the night she comes back to camp later in the summer, after she and Apollo had that stupid fight about inheritance and dad and shit. Diane can't blame her - anyone would be curious. And with Vanessa missing in action since the beginning of their summer, Hes has assumed the role of the leader, in their cabin. Thinks she owes it to everyone, or something. She and Diane share a bunk, Diane on the lower level, Hes up above, wood that creaks with every movement and can wake the heaviest sleepers in the dead of night with all its noise. Diane's trying to sleep, and Hes's words bar her from her efforts, though if she's being honest, she wasn't trying to hard anyway. She rolls over so that she's looking up at the space above her, whole bed creaking piercing and loud, and she finds Hes looking down. 

"What?" Diane hisses. 

"We never really talked about it," Hes says, clearly trying to keep her voice quiet, trying not to wake more people than she has to. "You being a god." 

"Well, yeah. Didn't really plan on you knowing, did I?"

Hes doesn't say anything, to that. Diane turns over again, back so that she's looking at the cabin wall, the darkness. 

"What's it like?" Hes asks. 

Diane doesn't really know what to say to that. 

What is it like, to carry the ability to heal in one hand while in the other you can make it so that everything withers, dies? What is it like to laugh and have it be held in the memory of the ocean, to dance and watch flowers spring from where your feet touch dark earth? What is it like to have all of that, for as long as you can remember, and then have it taken away in an instant, by a parent who you're starting to realize never even cared in the first place?

"It's like being a chili sauce," Diane says. "But like. Radioactive chili sauce." 

"Oh," says Hes. 

She doesn't ask any more questions. They both end up falling asleep, after that. 

Every morning is the same boring routine, the same bland waking-up, the same repetitive walk to the mess hall, the same annoying conversations over breakfast. Wren and Emily always walk together, and that new kid, Barney, they stick around with Mackenzie or Hes, sometimes even walking in a group of three, talking about cats and magic and forces beyond their comprehension. Diane walks in back, kicking at rocks with one sneaker, not taking her eyes of the ground. Diane doesn't like looking up at her brother's sky. Finds it boring as Asphodel, really, except at least Asphodel has a few fucking fruit trees. Diane doesn't know how her brother was ever credited as being the more 'creative' twin - he has no eye for design, just plops a bright yellow thing in the middle of a blue canvas and somehow _still_ manages to outshine her. Diane doesn't like thinking about that. She picks up a pinecone from not far off the trail, sap sticking her fingers together all tacky, and starts to pick it apart piece by piece, discarding them as she goes along. By the time they get to the mess hall, Barney and Hes are talking about bad puns and badge names. Because that's another part of camp; earning fucking badges.

"We are _not_ the Roanokes," Hes likes to remind them, even now, as they go about their daily activities. "Some of us campers actually _care_ about earning badges. We will _not_ bring ill upon the Zodiac name simply because it's become popular as of late." 

So each day they set about earning badges. They've split up - Emily's off making bead lizards somewhere, Wren's hanging with that guitarist, Mal, and Barney's earning yet another baking patch, trying to burn through all of them just to get something done, and hey, if they bring home a few extra muffins, no one's complaining. But it leaves Diane alone with Hes and Mackenzie, standing in the middle of the athletic field as Mackenzie bounces that bright red dodgeball up and down and up and down and up and down again, and Hes tries to encourage Diane to try something, _anything._

"You're fast," Hes says, laying a gentle hand on Diane's shoulder. "Maybe a racing badge? I'm sure you could out-run me, I've never been a good sprinter. More of an endurance kinda gal." 

Diane doesn't say anything. Shrugs. Remembers when she could run barefoot across the forest floor and it didn't bruise her feet, remembers scurrying up trees and swimming up streams and jumping from the tops of mountains. 

"You're the goddess of the hunt, right?" Hes asks, taking a different path. Diane nods. Hes starts to walk away, says, "One sec, I'll be back in a sec," and Diane stands and waits and remembers being all-mighty, though now she cannot remember how different it was from this life she has now, communal showers and braiding hair and fighting monsters when the Roanokes need her help. Diane shakes the thoughts from her head - Hes is coming back, and it wouldn't do to dwell. 

"You should try this," Hes says, handing her a bow and a quiver of arrows. "I know they're probably not what you're used to, but they'll do in a pinch. I've gotta go help Mackenzie earn her Team Player patch, but feel free to come looking for me if you need anything, okay?"

Diane nods. Hes leaves, and Diane notches an arrow, and starts to shoot. 

Diane never needed magic, for this. For clicking an arrow into place and pulling it back and watching it fly and pierce and kill. Of course, she isn't doing much killing now - mauling a few canvas targets, of course, but no lives are ending. It's peaceful. Meditative. She takes a break to tie her hair up and back, making sure nothing can get in her way. She rolls up her long purple sleeves, adjusts her footing, her posture, her _everything._ There's a counselor congratulating her and handing her a badge in no time. She looks up at the sky and sees _her_ sky waiting for her, purples and indigos and navy blues, lit by a million little lantern-stars. She wonders when the time got away from her. She used to be so good at telling the time. 

Diane can't sew to save her life, much less a patch to a sash, all for the effort of proclaiming how talented she is at archery. It's a useless task; each time she thinks she's threaded the needle right, she ends up dropping the thread all together and then calling after Mackenzie for a new spool. Eventually, Wren just snatches the whole project from her hands, threading the needle in seconds and handing it back to her, a gesture Diane knows must be loving but instead just comes across as frustrated, or annoyed. Diane tries to stitch the patch on but she pierces the skin on her finger, mortal body ever-so-breakable, skin no longer iron and copper and forged from the blood of gods. Diane never finishes her sewing project, in the end - leaves it to collect dust under her bunk, pretends she's forgotten about it, or that she's just too cool to complete it. Pretends it doesn't haunt her each night as she falls asleep that she can't slip a bit of thread through a cheap steal eye, that she can't work with her hands like Athena, that she doesn't even know what a fucking thimble's used for. She only begins to succumbs to slumber as Apollo rides his chariot across her silver sky, as she listens to the throbbing of the unfinished embroidery, like that story about a heart and floorboards Wren's always going on about. 

Diane and Hes share a bed, sometimes, when they need someone to hold onto. When Hes sees something in the woods that she could never, ever talk about, but something that forces her to seek comfort nonetheless. When Diane remembers an exchange she had long-ago with a parent, something that shouldn't hurt her anymore but it does it does it _does._ Sometimes Hes asks her questions, about how it feels to be infinite. Diane says that the closest you get is the feeling of seeing a Nike ad in a magazine for the first time. She doesn't elaborate beyond that, but it's enough for Hes, braiding Diane's hair in the dead of night when Diane's just woken up from a dream she shouldn't have had, _gods don't dream, not even when they're in a mortal vessel._ But Diane dreams. Diane dreams. 

"Vanessa once told me that you can braid magic into hair," Hes whispers into Diane's ear, always the one so careful to be quiet. 

"Sounds like a load of junk to me." 

"You were magic, once," Hes reminds her. "Still are, probably." 

"Gifts can be taken back and returned," Diane says. "Exchanged." 

"Magic is more than exchanges, I think. More than money and favors." Hes's fingers are quick, moving strand over strand over strand. Weaving even Athena would be jealous of. "I think it's built on love, curiosity..." 

"Very mortal of you." 

"Thanks."

The braid is finished, and Hes doesn't tie it off, but lets it sit, until she grows bored of it and runs her fingers through Diane's hair, undoing all of her hard, precious work. And when Diane's hair is finally all straightened out again, Hes's hands return to weaving. The unfinished badge pulses louder beneath Diane's bed, phantom heart beating so loud Diane can hardly hear her own thundering. Diane tells herself to shake it off, that the patch is just a project and that Hes is just a girl, mortal problems for humanity to deal with. Diane was a god, once. Probably still is ~~though gods don't dream.~~ She tells her heart to calm down. Tunes out the unfinished sewing job. 

Diane remembers being a god. The ritual of it all. The prayers from mortals and the prayers to gods and the sacraments and sacrifices and never-ending worship. Diane remembers feeling suffocated; she tried to run away, tried to free herself from that existence so many times, each time dragged home by Zeus or Hera kicking and screaming and begging to be made mortal. She remembers a time before she'd accepted her identity as a goddess. She remembers that last piece of her being stripped away. 

Diane remembers what worship feels like, and it doesn't feel like this, hair braided by someone who loves you at the deepest hours of the night, hiding from monsters and shadows that speak. But then what truly is the difference between worship and ritual? All the humans do is carry out rituals, that much is true - any casual observer could see it. And a ritual is just a rite performed to a god you don't know the name of, yet. Diane sits in the cabin and listens to the Zodiacs breathe, listens to a fly buzz and then die in the corner. Diane's hair is woven and unraveled again as Hes begins another prayer, to a deity neither of them can name. Diane sees lights out of the corner of her eye, and hears distant gunshots moments later.

Diane remembers being a god. She remembers nothing like this. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Title comes from [this poem](https://www.muzzlemagazine.com/angie-sijun-lou.html) which is one of my absolute favorites.


End file.
